Raw's private collection note

[Stuart Fullerton]

4th try at sending. being "black balled" again. alas we in the south have
always had that problem. last try on this one.  this list has become
"professional" only, and amateurs are again left out. one of these days you
will all remember you started out as amateurs and it it were not for a few
understanding folks that gave you the attention you needed to get the
interested you have nurtured until you could turn it into a paying position
(a professional is one that gets paid) you would still be amateurs.
yaaaaaarh!


Stuart Fullerton wrote:

> i am not sure we do encourage it any more.  but when working with
> students, we seem to continue to start them down that path in a effort
> to get them out of the living room, out into the field, hands on
> biodiversity, and give them something they collected to work with to
> foster interest.  i do here.
>
> now at the end of my life, i find that i am still processing the remains
> of my personal collection from over the years into the collection here.
> in fact it is the basis on which this regional collection is built. now
> in excess of 200,000 specimens.  had i never started with that personal
> collection we would not be doing now what we are.
>
> flip a coin and get on with the work. some of us chop wood, some of us
> build houses, and some of us tear them down if they are "antiques" and
> some of us are preservationists.  there is more than one way to skin a
> lab cat.
>
> cheers!  rof
>
> Tim Lowrey wrote:
>
> >   I have an excellent recent example of the vulnerability of private
> > collections. I have a friend who is an avid amateur botanist.  He
> > amassed an important private herbarium of northern New Mexico plants.
> > The collection represented many years of effort. He always resisted
> > putting the specimens in a properly curated herbarium. Rather, he
> > kept it in his home in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Unfortunately, the
> > Cerro Grande fire reduced his home and his private herbarium to ashes
> > along with a significant portion of other homes in Los Alamos.  All
> > his years of effort went up in flames and these important specimens
> > are lost to science. His current opinion of private collections now
> > matches that expressed by Anita.
> >
> > >Are we moving back in time?  Encouraging private collections
> > >undermines everything we have tried to accomplish in terms of
> > >specimen preservation for teaching, research, and future endeavors!
> > >Museums are the recognized format for specimen preservation with the
> > >experience, access to object conservation research, an environmental
> > >controls that cannot be achieved in private collections.  Why would
> > >anyone encourage private collections!
> > >
> > >
> > >________________________
> > >Anita F. Cholewa, Ph.D.
> > >Curator of Temperate Plants
> > >Bell Museum of Natural History
> > >University of Minnesota
> > >1445 Gortner Ave
> > >St Paul MN (USA)
> > >http://www.cbs.umn.edu/herbarium/vascularplantpage.htm
> >
> > --
> > Tim Lowrey, Ph.D.
> > Curator, UNM Herbarium
> > Museum of Southwestern Biology
> > Department of  Biology
> > University of New Mexico
> > Albuquerque, NM 87131
> > Tel: 505-277-2604
> > Fax: 505-277-6079
>
> --
> Stuart M Fullerton ROF, Research Associate in charge of Arthropod
> Collections (UCFC), Dept. of Biology, University of Central Florida, PO
> Box 162368, Orlando, Florida, 32816-2368, USA.
> stuartf at pegasus.cc.ucf.edu
> OR stuartf at biology.ucf.edu  (407) 823-6540 (no voice mail)
> <http://biology.ucf.edu/bugs/>

--
Stuart M Fullerton ROF, Research Associate in charge of Arthropod
Collections (UCFC), Dept. of Biology, University of Central Florida, PO
Box 162368, Orlando, Florida, 32816-2368, USA. stuartf at pegasus.cc.ucf.edu
OR stuartf at biology.ucf.edu  (407) 823-6540 (no voice mail)
<http://biology.ucf.edu/bugs/>